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War still wrong???
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
The News We Kept to Ourselves
By EASON JORDAN
ATLANTA — Over the last dozen years I made 13 trips to Baghdad to lobby the government to keep CNN's Baghdad bureau open and to arrange interviews with Iraqi leaders. Each time I visited, I became more distressed by what I saw and heard — awful things that could not be reported because doing so would have jeopardized the lives of Iraqis, particularly those on our Baghdad staff.
For example, in the mid-1990's one of our Iraqi cameramen was abducted. For weeks he was beaten and subjected to electroshock torture in the basement of a secret police headquarters because he refused to confirm the government's ludicrous suspicion that I was the Central Intelligence Agency's Iraq station chief. CNN had been in Baghdad long enough to know that telling the world about the torture of one of its employees would almost certainly have gotten him killed and put his family and co-workers at grave risk.
Working for a foreign news organization provided Iraqi citizens no protection. The secret police terrorized Iraqis working for international press services who were courageous enough to try to provide accurate reporting. Some vanished, never to be heard from again. Others disappeared and then surfaced later with whispered tales of being hauled off and tortured in unimaginable ways. Obviously, other news organizations were in the same bind we were when it came to reporting on their own workers.
We also had to worry that our reporting might endanger Iraqis not on our payroll. I knew that CNN could not report that Saddam Hussein's eldest son, Uday, told me in 1995 that he intended to assassinate two of his brothers-in-law who had defected and also the man giving them asylum, King Hussein of Jordan. If we had gone with the story, I was sure he would have responded by killing the Iraqi translator who was the only other participant in the meeting. After all, secret police thugs brutalized even senior officials of the Information Ministry, just to keep them in line (one such official has long been missing all his fingernails).
Still, I felt I had a moral obligation to warn Jordan's monarch, and I did so the next day. King Hussein dismissed the threat as a madman's rant. A few months later Uday lured the brothers-in-law back to Baghdad; they were soon killed.
I came to know several Iraqi officials well enough that they confided in me that Saddam Hussein was a maniac who had to be removed. One Foreign Ministry officer told me of a colleague who, finding out his brother had been executed by the regime, was forced, as a test of loyalty, to write a letter of congratulations on the act to Saddam Hussein. An aide to Uday once told me why he had no front teeth: henchmen had ripped them out with pliers and told him never to wear dentures, so he would always remember the price to be paid for upsetting his boss. Again, we could not broadcast anything these men said to us.
Last December, when I told Information Minister Muhammad Said al-Sahhaf that we intended to send reporters to Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq, he warned me they would "suffer the severest possible consequences." CNN went ahead, and in March, Kurdish officials presented us with evidence that they had thwarted an armed attack on our quarters in Erbil. This included videotaped confessions of two men identifying themselves as Iraqi intelligence agents who said their bosses in Baghdad told them the hotel actually housed C.I.A. and Israeli agents. The Kurds offered to let us interview the suspects on camera, but we refused, for fear of endangering our staff in Baghdad.
Then there were the events that were not unreported but that nonetheless still haunt me. A 31-year-old Kuwaiti woman, Asrar Qabandi, was captured by Iraqi secret police occupying her country in 1990 for "crimes," one of which included speaking with CNN on the phone. They beat her daily for two months, forcing her father to watch. In January 1991, on the eve of the American-led offensive, they smashed her skull and tore her body apart limb by limb. A plastic bag containing her body parts was left on the doorstep of her family's home.
I felt awful having these stories bottled up inside me. Now that Saddam Hussein's regime is gone, I suspect we will hear many, many more gut-wrenching tales from Iraqis about the decades of torment. At last, these stories can be told freely.
Eason Jordan is chief news executive at CNN
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/11/opinion/11JORD.html?ex=1050638400&en=ea21e8c88feae21c&ei=5062&partner=GOOGLE
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Comments
"As recently as early 2001, German intelligence reported that activity had been observed at a uranium processing facility in Qaim, 260 miles west of Baghdad, and that Iraq could have nuclear weapons capable of reaching Europe by 2005. "
I think for some people in Europe, it would take a nuclear bomb up their butts to believe they were in danger. Europe was comprised of too many appeasers in WW2 and still is today.
Like when they after WW2 found out how close Hitler had been to gain nuclear powers.
There was some speculation Saddam would have it sooner...within a year. Then what?
saddam was actualy our friend until we double dealed him and turned him into our enemy. he was not a threat to the west apart from our own making.
Nice thought.
"Oh, I just hit you. Yeah, I'll just let you cry, instead of giving you the tissue in my pocket".'
Removing him, won't make the scares disappear, but they sure as hell will help them heal faster.
Btw, have the death tolls been confirmed?
someone would have shot saddam and things would have progressed a little more each passing day.
saddam had become a recluse and we couldn't get him? funny how he's off out to his favourite restaurant in the middle of shock and awe ...
Maybe you'd shut up, and think through what the fuck you type out!
Psst. You forgot to say and multi-billion dollar oil deals for France and Russia.
And how do you know everyone's religion in Washington? I don't even know that.
Cause Clandestine is a fucker, who likes to distort thing so they appear as he wants them to.
Psst. Now we've got multi-billion dollar oil deals for the Americans and the French and Russians will still be paid.
I assume Clandestine was referring to the evangelical Christian nature of the current White House. :rolleyes: Yes, religion has a lot to answer for...
....Its a hard one. The sight of small crowds in Iraq celebrating their 'liberation' is moving and may be for the better good of Iraq. It may be that the troops in Bagdad have achieved the goal of liberation, however...in my humble opinion the mass killing of people is wrong, be it by torture and chemicals or bombing.
The sight of people freed from bondage imploding and looting and causing havoc is a distressing on and possibly inevitable given that they have been straight-jacketed for decades and now feel they can do whatever the hell they like because they are 'free'.
I feel that it is a shame that it came to this, that the 'goal' was reached by the killing of thousands of innocent people, when there may have been better and more peaceful ways to get to that 'goal'
I still believe the war was based not upon the desire to liberate but on much more sinister reasons that are begining to come to light with the behaviour of the Turks.
Yeas its good that there is hope that Iraqi people will live with some kind of democrasy (eventually) but I still don't agree with the way it took place.
AND, Jacqueline the Ripper, PLEASE don't show yourself up by posting like that about Clandestine who has contributed some interesting and well argued points on these boards and does not deserve to be targeted like that....you are only cheating yourself and it is unnecessary and the reason why interesting debates like this one get closed by the mods.
Both Wolfowitz and Perle are dual citizens with strong involvement in the Likhud Party and amongst Sharon's own government advisors as well.
Sorry to shatter your bubble Jacq, but the dual interests at work here are more widely recognised by policy analysts who do not subscribe to the strangle hold which the fundamentalist Christian Right/Zionist lobby have on policy decisions in Washington. Such divided loyalties have no place in US politics nor should they be allowed to.
That the Bush doctrine is a step by step plan to control one arab country after another is too beneficial to Israel's own self interests to be dismissed, however much you would like to hide behind the much abused accusation of anti-semitism.
Im not against Jews, I am dead set against zionists though and make no apology for it.
Wrongo. America wants the Iraqis to decide who gets what oil contract. The UN wants to administer the oil. The Iraqi exiles and Kurds want the Americans to handle it.
If it were any more obvious it would bite you.
new details for what he called “town meetings” across Iraq that are intended to help identify new Iraqi leaders who could work with U.S. authorities and begin a lengthy process for establishing democratic rule.
His remarks provided the most specific picture so far of just how U.S. officials intend to restore a measure of stability and initiate a new process of self-rule. He said a meeting planned for next week in the southern Iraqi city of Nasiriyah with a broad range of Iraqis is meant to start a “rolling dialogue” that would “define issues” and enable Iraqis to get a sense of “who are the people that can articulate positions well, who seem to speak for more than just themselves.”
The meetings will be hosted by Gen. Tommy R. Franks, the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, and will be organized in partnership with Britain, Australia and Poland, the other countries with substantial ground forces in the country.
The oil contracts will have already long been doled out to the corporations most closely tied to this admin, mark my words.
Clandestine, is nothing more than a racist. I am sorry to say so. Only thing he does is to bash either Jews or the American government. Mostly blaming Jews for the "atrocities of the US". I am tired of reading it, and frankly I do not care if this thread gets closed down, cause I seriously do feel that I have a point here.
He'll continue his agenda, and he can expect me to comment on it. Seems fair enough to me.
I can't take this guy seriously.
As much as my opinion differ from f.ex. Toadborg and Aladdin's, I can still associate with them in other threads. Clandestine simply disgusts me.
Sorry, but that is what the map looks like at the moment. Want it to change, then give him a bit of sense.
Yup, the US send their troops, jeapordize their men, only so Israel can stay happy
For starters if this was only a case of keeping Israel happy, they'd let Israel participate. Your ramblings do not make sense, and your arguments for anything are getting weaker and weaker.
And for everyday that passes, I am more and more convinced of why a Jewish state should exist.
Frankly, you are not aware of whatever is going on around you, and just like to spite out your hateful and racist comments.
Sorry to tell you taht your perving within the sex foum was a better read, than what you post in here.
Want to continue?
Further i did not suggest that it was just to keep Israel happy. It has strategic implications for both the US and Israel who as anyone can see have colluded on Middle East policy for decades.
I am not remotely surprised by your vehement dismissal of my views, I similarly dismiss your rather right wing excusing of any wrongdoing by Sharon and co, so on that score Id say we're even.
Perhaps if you like the sex forum so much, youd be better off staying there and not getting your knickers in a twist over here where you are going to be forced to deal with those of us who have considerably more experience in the duplicities of international politics than you do.
Your view of me is not my concern nor my interest here, so rant all you like.
Though I am aware that I am now stepping into some kind of spat between you and Clandestine I think you yould re-evaluate your view if Clandestine as a racist.
Perhaps you are confusing political debate and awareness of international political theory with racism.
its a very dodgy accusation and seems to be based only upon a very Pro-American Ideal.
Please ... do not try to win the argument at all costs, youo need to listen and learn from what some of the more regular posters are saying. There is no point in resorting to slander and abuse now is there?
I see view your comments as racist. Had I said the same thing about blacks for instance you would have said the same.
But it's the Jews, so it's ok.
Byny, I do not automatically call people racist. And I feel that through the timke Clandestine has posted in this forum, I've seen enough of it. I do mean what I say.
I am pretty tired of his arrogance which has no place, as he has nothing to feel superior for.
Btw, I have spent enough time, and posted enough to know exactly how I should act and react. Thank you.
Not every Jew is a zionist and there are many in the US who do not subscribe to nor condon what Sharon and Likhud have long pursued against the Palestinians. Even Peres stands diametrically opposed to the incessant defiance of UN resolutions, the expansion of settlements and the unending bombardment of civilian areas of the Palestinian territories.
Nevertheless, you are mistaken to presume this invasion of Iraq has not been influenced by broader Israeli interests. That the Israelis were not involved goes to political expedience which neither Tel Aviv nor Washington were prepared to dispense with. If there had been any recognisable Israeli involvement on the ground you know as well as I that it would have enflamed the Arab world far more than is already the case.
That however did not stop Sharon and his Washington lackies previously named (and others not named) from pushing hard for Bush to get the show underway asap.
Now we wait for the next target on this road show and whether you wish to believe it or not, the Sharon government is right their pulling strings behind the scenes in the furtherance of its own militant self interest.
You can bet that there will be no legitimate progress on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict under this admin. They have already demonstrated a willingness to let Sharon do whatever he damn well pleases and both ISraeli and the US are going to find themselves increasingly isolated internationally because of it.
So you go right ahead and sweep the worngs under the carpet by screaming racism, the claim is spurious. I made no slurs against Judaism nor the Jewish population of Israel. My concern is with the political positions of hard line zionists, be they Jewish or fundamentalist Christian (as many are in the US and undoubtedly in Israel as well).
Just stating that you are constantly spiting anti Jewish shit, and that I am sick and tired of it, and won't listen to it, without commenting.
I do view your remarks as racist. And will continue to do so, until you lay off.
So frankly I could care less what you wish to believe.
judaism is not a race...its a religion!